Monday, December 16, 2013

December 16, 1939; Graf Spee Must Sail by Sunday:

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY, DECEMBER 16, 1939:

Destroyer
Sunk,

Reds
Routed,

Helsinki
Claims

Defenders
Report Twenty Soviet

Tanks
Seized in Battle;

Minister
Offers Peace to Russ

HELSINKI, Dec. 15 (AP)—The
Finnish high command Friday night announced that a Russian destroyer had been
sunk by coastal batteries, 20 soviet tanks captured and others destroyed and
that Russian troops had been defeated in.24 hours of fighting.

While Finnish forces were reporting
these setbacks to the Russian invaders,. Foreign Minister Vaino Tanner was
putting the issue of continued war or peace
negotiations squarely up to the soviet union government in a sudden radio
speech addressed to Premier Foreign Commissar Vyacheslav Molotov.

Sinks
Destroyer

He declared that the Finns are till
willing to negotiate a peace but, "if Moscow's aim is conquest of the
whole country, then the Finns will fight to the end."

A high command communique said
coast defense batteries, during a battle in the' outer Turku Archipelago,
damaged a Russian destroyer of the Gordi type so badly that it sank later in full
view of a Finnish military lookout.

Raider
Faces

Internment

As
Alternative

British
Massed

Off
Uruguay

To
Attack Foe

MONTEVIDEO, Dec. 16 (Saturday)—(AP)—Uruguay early Saturday gave the
German raider Admiral Graf Spee the choice of sailing Sunday night to sea, where
British warships are waiting to sink her, or accepting internment in this
neutral port for the duration of the war.

The government handed its ultimatum—
sail by 5 p. m. Sunday (1:30 p. m., M. S. T.) or be interned— to the commander
of the crippled pocket battleship shortly after midnight.

Notified of the Uruguayan
decision, German Minister Otto Langmann commented; "I shall communicate
the action to my government. I have nothing more to say."

Uruguay acted promptly after an
Uruguayan naval board inspected the Graf Spee at her mooring in Montevideo
harbor and recommended such a step. Previously, Great
Britain had made two urgent demands upon the South American country, to force
the Graf Spee to sail or to intern her.

The above map illustrates
conflicting British and German reports

of the big North sea air battle.
London claims five

Messerschmidts were downed over
Helgoland bight while

three British planes were lost.
Berlin says eight English

bombers were lost near the island
of Spiekerkoog and one

Messcrschmtdt was destroyed.

British
Carry Fight to Foe

In
North Sea Air War

London
Reveals Mass Attack on Nazi

Convoy
of Crippled Cruiser;

Bomb
German Island "Seaplane Base

LONPON, Dec. 15 (AP)—Great
Britain's fast-expanding air force was disclosed Friday night to have flown
boldly to the attack in mass offensives against Germany's boasted air
superiority, launching a big-scale war in the air.

With the cold and cloud-blown North
sea as the battleground, the British pressed repeated waves of fast long-range
planes, capable of both bombing and fighting, against the air and sea escort of
a crippled German cruiser, and against nazi seaplane bases at Borkum, Sylt, and
Norderney.

These continuing offensive
patrols were Britain answers to persistent nazi air raids and mine-laying forays
on British naval anchorages and seaplanes.

World Awaits
Russ Reaction

To Branding by
League

Amazing Stand of
Tiny Finland .

May
Limit Retaliation

By
Moscow to Name-Calling

By Kirke L. Simpson

Associated Press Staff Writer

Russia is again the center of
attention as the world awaits her reaction to the League of Nations action in
branding her as international public enemy No. 1 for her attack on little
Finland.Not even the aftermath of thefirst spectacular naval battle of the
German-British-French war, or the ultimate fate of the nazi pocket battleship
driven to refuge in Montevideo harbor, holds as much interest as docs the
question whether the league's condemnation may widen the present European war.
It is more than possible that Russian entry into the battle as a formal ally of
Germany would spread the flame of war into the

Balkans, the Mediterranean, into Scandinavia
and possibly even into the far east.

Reds
Gall Some Names

Yet the first word from Moscow, branding
the league as a tool of British imperialism, a puppet of plutocracy, does not
suggest that any more formidable weapon than words is being made ready in
Russia.

And developments of the Russian
attack on Finland, due to the amazing stand of the Finns against seemingly
impossible odds, must have convinced Moscow that it has too big a job there to
risk war involvement elsewhere just now. There can be little doubt that restoration
of red army prestige in Finland is the
chief immediate concern of Stalin and his advisers.

The success of Finnish resistancehas
deflated it. The effect of that deflation was easily discernible in the votes
of league council members who endorsed this most drastic disciplinary step ever
taken by the league, ejection of a major member.

Only
Nazis Back Reds

That the little nations of the
Baltic, Balkan and Scandinavian groups refrained from voting did little to
impair the unanimity of the Geneva verdict. Only in Germany has any approving
word beensaid of the Russian attack on Finland, and Moscow cannot doubt that
nazi endorsement of its course is forced as much by circumstances as was the
abstention from voting of Russia's little neighbors

About Me

December 7, 1941 had a great impact on E. T. and others that remember the attack on Pearl Harbor. Prior to the attack, many of us were reporting on Current Events that led up to the outbreak of World War II, September 6, 1939. E. T. was 15 years old and living in Ellensburg Washington. The impact was profound, we lost acquaintances and friends in the attack that President Roosevelt referred to as a “DAY OF INFAMY'.
These events which were “Current Events” in 1942 to 1946 have been preserved by
“Access NEWSPAPER ARCHIVE”; E. T. is presenting copies of these files to generate an interest in our past history that should not be forgotten.
Lives were changed as America was forced into the conflict; my older brother and many of his friends were drafted or enlisted in the Military services and E. T. served in the U. S. Maritime Service and Merchant Marine on three ships during the conflict.